House For Sale

By Divya Devarajan

Right amidst the lush green patch near the park

is one vacant house, closed and sealed

Like an useless piece of craft work, like a dirt in the glass

It's walls are painted in yellow and blue

Might've been painted with hope, maybe a tint of sadness-

as 'House for sale', the front board reads

The house was once a home to a man

and his woman, in old age- in forever'age

They lived in there, they said..they died in there, they said.

You see cobwebs all around; sticking memories, the stories

interwined in it's walls, a shared laugh or two-

and the scent of solitude, of desperation lingers deep around

The door opens with a creak, and it welcomes you to the eeriness

A chill goes through your heart, settling in your spine,

as it's cold, as though you're stuck in a morgue!

The curtain picks up the wind and you shield your face from it,

not quick enough to stop the smell of death that's stuck on it since long

and you see them standing, looking out from the same window, waiting.

The room is filled with books, two lying face down

A bookmark sits in the edge, the book sad with unfulfilled dreams

The clothes are still folded and neatly kept, never to be worn again, never to be warm

They died happily, they said..but all you see is the withered parts of soul

Their handprints on the counter, a pair of glasses on the shelf

A flashlight near the bedside and an earmuff, all torn

Out from the balcony, two pigeons keenly stares

with curious eyes, asking why now?, when it's bereft

when no eyes are dry with waiting, with no face to break into a smile

When no hands to bring you a hug, nor one life to hold you with their wings

and you still breath in the scent of long lost memories

of savoured childhood days and of adventurous adolescence

You close your eyes to get back to those time,

and you feel their warmth, the ever enveloping shield!

By Divya Devarajan